Hello,
Does anyone know of some CD with Spanish songs? The goal is to introduce a preschooler to spanish in a fun way. I took a few CDs from the library, most of them had pretty difficult songs where it's hard to catch words if the spanish level is beginner.
So, I guess bilingual songs would be nice, where they sing a word in English and spanish. Or, easy songs similar to ABC song in English only in Spanish.

It's not a CD, however I recommend "The Complete Book of Spanish Preschool" by School Specialty Publishing. There's fun, colorful workbook pages along with lots of songs & chants in the back that you sing to the tune of well known songs. This workbook also continues for different grade levels as your child progresses.

If you do not already know how to pronounce Spanish words to help teach your DC, then purchase an inexpensive adult book with a good pronunciation guide. For example, "Spanish in 10 Minutes a Day" is a good choice. You don't need to go through the entire book, just learn how to pronounce Spanish words. Luckily, Spanish words are phonetically stable, unlike English.

Also, "Learn in Your Car Spanish" is a cute story about a boy going to a fiesta with his friend from Mexico who teaches him Spanish on the way to the party. If your DC is really young, you might try a CD series called something like "Spanish Lullabies for Babies".

If your DC is a little older, close to school age, you might invest in the Bob Jones University Spanish Kit A. It's about 3 years worth of flash cards, songs, Bible verses, workbooks, stories, etc. designed for elementary children. We presently use Kit B and love it. It's not cheap so perhaps you could find a used one somewhere.

My husband is a language freak so we've already tried just about everything. Be careful, as there is a ton of stuff out there which is worthless for learning Spanish in my opinion. An example would be the Muzzy series, (unless they already have some exposure to the language) and a group of music CDs put out by Beth somebody. Sorry I can't remember her last name and all the CDs are long ago in the trash.

Minniewannabe wrote:Anna, which is worthless for learning Spanish in my opinion. An example would be the Muzzy series, (unless they already have some exposure to the language)

It's interesting that you mention Muzzy. It used to be one my son's favorite learning program. For learning English that is, we speak Russian at home and until last year my son's English was very weak.
So, for us Muzzy worked, I want to try Spanish muzzy one of these days to see if he would like him as well.

I'm glad you mentioned you liked Muzzy for English. I have it for Chinese I & II also, but never opened the boxes because the Spanish one wasn't good for us. Perhaps I should at least give it a try. Maybe it works better in some languages than others. The program is so expensive I hate seeing it sit on a closet shelf.

By the way, you write beautiful English. I never would have guessed your home language to be Russian. Has your family tried learning other languages also?

Minniewannabe wrote:Anna, I'm glad you mentioned you liked Muzzy for English. I have it for Chinese I & II also, but never opened the boxes because the Spanish one wasn't good for us. Perhaps I should at least give it a try. Maybe it works better in some languages than others. The program is so expensive I hate seeing it sit on a closet shelf.

By the way, you write beautiful English. I never would have guessed your home language to be Russian. Has your family tried learning other languages also?

I have just watched the entire Spanish Muzzi together with my kids. Well, it's a long cartoon, 2 hours or more, so it took us 3 or 4 days. I think it's a very good cartoon. It's a regular cartoon in Spanish with interesting, pretty complicated plot, only they put educational stuff every few minutes (sort of like Sesame street)

It's interesting to hear why you had such a bad experience with it? I'm assuming we are talking about the same Muzzi (El Muzzi Grande and Muzzi in Gondoland).

BTW, we didn't buy it, my husband is an expert at downloading things like that for free from the internet (mostly from russian or chinese sites, they have a lot of stuff there)

Thanks for complementing my English. I've been in America for 16 years, came when I was 15, and went through a lot of education, from high school to graduate school.

In our family the stress until this year has been on English, because my son was slow at speaking it. NOw that he is speaking English I decided to introduce Spanish because it's a language that I've learned for many years while being in college (and wouldn't mind a refresher now I also learned a bit of Italian, however, 3 languages are more than enough for us. I'm also trying to teach my son to read and write in Russian, but that's very hard, because he doesn't want to do that

Lily wrote:There's a book/cd combo pack out called Teach Me _____! It uses simple children's songs translated into the language you desire to introduce children to the language.

Thanks, these are very good. We listened to this, and also bought Teach Me more spanish, hope it would be good as well. That's what I like, familiar, simple and they give words which is so important (for someone like me who kind of know Spanish but not good enough to distinguish individual words in a children song . )

I just wanted to add that we tried the Muzzy for Spanish, and it didn't go well. The children couldn't hear the Spanish clearly enough to pick up any of the words and thought it was, in their own words "cheesey".

I'm still looking for something that works for them. Preferably something not book based. I'm reading things to them all day long and I'd really like something that can be done without me having to read more. They get tired of sitting down listening to me read all day.

Ophelia wrote:I just wanted to add that we tried the Muzzy for Spanish, and it didn't go well. The children couldn't hear the Spanish clearly enough

You know, you are write, it's not easy to distinguish the words, now that I think about it. My Spanish level is good enough to understand many words in that cartoon, but even I couldn't make some of the words.
I guess the reason my child likes it is because he knows the story very well (from watching the English Muzzi), plus I try to be around to translate some expressions and repeat words.

Visit this link. They have combo offer on Spanish songs CD. They have CD, DVD and a songbook. Which will help kids to pick the songs very fast. That offers is really nice. I'm gonna buy it. Hope you'll buy it too.